Optical Interconnect Built Inside Silicon Chips

[TazarZero]

Soooo, scientifically speaking.... Huh? o.O

[SuckMyTXPO]

One word: Perkinamine NR™

[bloodaid]

I can imagine this cpu run on like 70ghz or more, without any significant heat generation, plus it could probably be the first cpu with a 3D design, like layers on top of each other.

imagine 1 core operating at 50ghz, with 32 cores on 1 layer, and like 5 layers encapsuled in 1 cpu.

and it would be awesome if a customer could buy several cpu's to connect on top of each other, like lego, maybe even on the sides, meaning that 1 cpu would have 6 sides available to connect with other cpus.

[bloodaid]

@bloodaid now imagine youre a customer and think, hey, I want some more power, should I overclock? yes! should I buy a new cpu? yes! should I buy 2, 3, maybe 6 new cpus? hell yeah!

so 6 cpus = 5layers*6 = (32cores*5layers)*6cpus = 960 cores.

that would be superdupermeganerdgasmawesome!

imagine if intel would release those types of cpus in 5 years.

all other companies would totally explode from bunkrupcy.

and oh, imagine RAM built into each core. like 1gb in each layer.

the future is awesome!!!

[Calle2k]

Anny bottlenecks when using light this way?

[douro20]

The biggest use I could see for this is the bus interconnects between cores in a multicore processor.

[gravufo]

@douro20 How could you not think about the memory controller? This could potentially make the connection between the RAM and the CPU extremely fast...Combined with a (extremely advanced) SSD, it would simply be a killer speed to open a program...

[comedytracker]

How do I get employed by Intel?

I have an i7

[majormixer]

The light fantastic. The next leap in processing !

Awesome !!

[RussellTuan]

in a layout point of view,does this improve the interconection between chips ? you have ot layout trans circuit into your chips,Does it better then just few lines of copper or AL ??

[Bmonney1985]

@RussellTuan yes, since you can use WDM on the wave guide, effectively you would not need to route, since the end and start points of each bus stop use the same wave guide to transmit data. the signals are independent and can only be detected where they are needed using simple optical filtering. Bandwidth is limited by interferance typical in any optical system, as well as the quality of laser modulation

[BurtWilson1]

Does that wafer at the end feature the optical technology? Will optical technology progress from year to year at the same, or a higher, or a less rate than current silicon technology?

[zume]

i think the improvement rate of silicon technology will slow, as silicon is pretty limited. it's rough, and not precise enough to make chips really much smaller than they currently do. silicon is really an ancient relic of the past. new plastics and especially optical processes are not yet in production, or on display anywhere, but they will be..i bet within the next five years. Intel knows above all else, that to keep making chips, they have to be the BEST, and never the second best.